build2013

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft announced that it is adding auto scaling for web apps to its Azure cloud-computing platform. This will allow developers to dynamically scale their cloud server capacity on Azure automatically as needed. Users can, of course, set a maximum and minimum number of servers to run at any given time.
Enabling this feature just takes a few clicks in… Read More

Microsoft has announced general availability of Windows Azure Web Site and Mobile Service, accentuating the emphasis on development using the Azure cloud service.
According to Microsoft, Windows Azure Web Site allows customers to build scalable websites on Windows Azure. Windows Azure Web Site uses the languages and open source apps of a customer’s choice and supports deployment with… Read More

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft announced that it has added support for Bootstrap, the popular framework for responsive websites that was launched out of Twitter in 2011. Visual Studio 2013’s project templates will use Bootstrap by default when you want to build a web app in Microsoft’s ASP.NET now. If you were already tired of seeing too many Bootstrap-based… Read More

Microsoft announced at the Build conference today that Windows Azure now has 8.5 trillion objects stored on its infrastructure.
The company also announced the following:
Customers do 900,000 storage transactions per second.
The service is doubling its compute and storage every six months.
3.2 million organizations have Active Directory accounts with 68 million users.
More than 50 percent of… Read More

In a press briefing this afternoon, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 11 will support SPDY, the Google-backed protocol for speeding up download speeds for web sites. Microsoft only briefly talked about this in its briefing and didn’t even mention it in its announcement, but this is actually a major step for SPDY, which is now supported in all of the mainstream browsers. Read More

The headlines are loud and clear today. Microsoft brings back the Start Button in Windows 8! Huzzah! ZONG! But don’t believe the hype. We’ve been duped.
Windows 8.1’s Start Button isn’t the Start Button of old. The classic multi-step application launcher is still missing. Windows 8.1’s Start Button is more of a shortcut to the Start Menu — you know, the… Read More

Microsoft showed the new Visual Studio 2013 at the Build conference today. The new integrated development environment (IDE) features include performance tools for power consumption, asynchronous calls for debugging and an overall focus on the connected app. Read More

At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft announced that it is opening up quite a bit of Bing‘s advanced functionality to developers. As Microsoft corporate VP Gurdeep Singh Pall noted, developers are already using Bing APIs, of course, but apps can now use Bing’s entities and knowledge, natural user interfaces, optical character recognition and new mapping and… Read More

Microsoft just announced that the Bing Maps app for Windows 8.1 will offer 3D imagery, just like Google Maps and Apple Maps. This previously unannounced feature, Microsoft’s corporate VP Gurdeep Singh Pall said while demonstrating some new capabilities of Bing for developers, will launch with Windows 8.1, though it’s not in the preview version yet.
Microsoft, he said, developed its… Read More

Microsoft is adding a bunch of new things to Windows 8.1, as the first part of its “rapid release” plan for its desktop OS. One aspect of the update is the new Food and Drink app for Windows 8, which is all about those two things, as you might’ve guessed. It’s a small addition, but one that uses a fairly ingenious interface gimmick to really make using it in the… Read More

Our own Frederic Lardinois noted that the new version of Internet Explorer wasn’t a major revamp, but it does play home to some very compelling changes under the hood.
Take WebGL for instance — nearly all of Microsoft’s major browser rivals have already jumped on that bandwagon, and now Antoine Leblond confirmed at Microsoft’s annual BUILD conference in San Francisco… Read More

Microsoft is doing its bit to help push forward the 3D printing revolution, by adding in native 3D printer support in Windows 8.1. A new API will let developers on its platform put 3D printing capabilities right into their apps, so that you’ll be able to print that elegant ashtray you’re modelling right on the spot. The API will help consumers using devices including those from… Read More

With its Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft today also launched a new version of its camera app. For the most part, the app hasn’t really changed all that much, but Microsoft has added a cool (though derivative) new feature to the app: panoramas. Given the company’s history with these apps, starting with PhotoSynth many years ago, this doesn’t really come as a surprise, though it… Read More

One of the redesigned apps Microsoft is introducing in the Windows 8.1 Preview is an update to its Xbox Music app that now puts the emphasis back on your own music – whether in the cloud or on your local machine – and less on music discovery, which the previous version focused on.
When you first open the app, you’ll immediately notice that it’s now designed around… Read More

For the Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft took a close look at its Windows Store and decided to give it a facelift and make a few changes to the way the operating system handles Store apps. Windows Store apps are now automatically updated in the background, for example, and the store features a new look that puts a strong emphasis on recommendations instead of the focus on categories in the… Read More

Microsoft today officially launched Windows 8.1 Preview, the first public beta of its flagship operating system’s next version, at its Build developer conference in San Francisco today. For Microsoft, Windows 8.1 represents a chance to fix some of the issues with Windows 8. The fact that Microsoft is bringing back the Start button and now allowing users to boot right into the desktop is… Read More

Microsoft is kicking off its Build developer conference today at 9am. The company has already announced that it will unveil Windows 8.1 in a Preview version today, but beyond that, though, we actually don’t know all that much about Microsoft’s plans for today’s event, including who will keynote it. It’s a fair guess that Julie-Larson Green, who is now in charge of… Read More